Questions and answers

Is it legal for you to hold my personal financial information?

Dear James,

Can you please tell me where do you collect my financial information from?
From the banks? Is this legal, is this not personal information? Also
if I do not vote but have banking facilities can you still give me a credit report?

Jim, London

Dear Jim,

We collect information from a variety of sources, including publicly available
records (such as court judgments and electoral roll information) and information from
banks and other lenders (such as loans and credit cards). The latter information is
stored with us and accessed by other lenders with your agreement, which lenders obtain
each time you apply for credit. To provide this data-sharing service we are authorised
by the Financial Conduct Authority to run a credit reference agency and also registered
with the Information Commissioner’s Office to process personal information.
As custodians of large amounts of personal data we have a responsibility to look after
it very carefully, something that we take very seriously indeed. So we act as gatekeepers,
controlling who can see the data, promoting data quality and helping the public see
and, importantly, understand their credit reports. We can run a credit report
on anyone – with their permission of course – even if there’s no
data registered at all. A copy of your credit report will show you exactly what data
we do hold on you. If you can register to vote it’s certainly advantageous as
far as credit checking is concerned. Our electoral
roll guide explains more. (August 2012)

Experian Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Experian Ltd is registered in England and Wales under company registration number 653331.
Registered office address: The Sir John Peace Building, Experian Way, NG2 Business Park, Nottingham NG80 1ZZ.